Creative New Zealand recognises excellence

Creative New Zealand recognises excellence

Saturday, 6 May 2006

Creative New Zealand recognises excellence in arts journalism
at Qantas Media Awards

Print journalists and press photographers were celebrated in Auckland for their contribution to New Zealand arts journalism at the 2006 Qantas Media Awards.

Creative New Zealand, the country’s main arts development agency, has been sponsoring the arts journalism categories of the Qantas Media Awards since 1996 as part of its on going advocacy work.

“Creative New Zealand sponsors the arts journalism and photography categoriesof the Qantas Media Awards to encourage and reward excellence in arts journalism and photography in New Zealand,”says Peter Biggs, Chair of Creative New Zealand.

“The artistic achievements of our small country are extraordinary and Creative New Zealand is constantly working with the media to ensure that the work of New Zealand artists is recognised and reported. Our sponsorship of these Awards is an opportunity to acknowledge the significance of the media in telling engaging arts stories that New Zealanders want to read and see, ” says Mr Biggs.

Arts category awards were presented to the following :

The awards for Newspaper Feature Writer, Best Arts Feature and the overall Qantas Fellowship were presented to journalist Steve Braunias of the Sunday Star Times. Mr Braunias received the Creative New Zealand Award for his story entitled ‘Te Howard”. He was also awarded the prestigious Qantas Fellowship to Wolfson College, Cambridge for the body of work he entered in this year’s awards.

Grant Smithies of Sunday Magazine, Sunday Star Times received the award for Magazine Feature, Best Arts Feature for his article “Art and Soul.”

The award for Best Arts Column was presented to Christopher Moore from The Press, for the second year running. This year Mr Moore received the award for his column entitled “Dancing to a new beat”.

Best Arts Review was presented to Aaron Kreisler for his New Zealand Listener review “Ice Breakers” for which he also won Best Overall Review. The judges said: “In a field once punctuated by academic terminology, visual arts reviewer Kreisler has mastered the technique of being candid and informative without recourse to curatorial tradespeak.”

The award for Photography, Best Arts Portfolio was awarded to Maarten Holl, of the Dominion Post. The judges were impressed by the series of dance photographs and said, “Maarten has used dance to create a beautiful portfolio.”

The award for best Newspaper Specialist Section, Arts was presented to The Dominion Post. The judges said that the Dominion “reflected the capital city’s reputation for being the country’s arts capital and showed an edge over other newspapers with its Arts and Entertainment Section”.

Barry Young, Director of the Qantas Media Awards, says Creative New Zealand’s sponsorship of the awards has been an important catalyst in developing the whole genre of reporting about the arts.

ENDS

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